SOFTS-Arabica Coffee Retreats from 5-Week High, Cocoa Also Lower

(Reuters) – Arabica coffee futures on ICE retreated further from the previous session’s five-week high on Tuesday, while sugar and cocoa prices also eased.

COFFEE * December arabica coffee was off 2.55 cents, or 1.8 percent, at $1.3780 per lb at 1048 GMT. The second position had risen to a five-week high of $1.4235 on Monday.

* Dealers said the market was weighed by technically-driven selling following a weak close on Monday and there was scope for prices to fall further in the short term.

* The market remained underpinned, however, by indications that Brazil’s 2018/19 crop may not be as huge as initially anticipated.

* Brazilian coffee analysts, producers and cooperatives are backtracking on earlier forecasts that the world’s largest producer would see its biggest crop in 2018, as a harsh drought in top producing regions takes its toll.

* “In our view, the much promoted 60 million bag crop for Brazil that was supposed to be harvested over the summer of 2018 is now not possible,” said Shawn Hackett, president of Hackett Financial Advisors in a report received on Tuesday.

* “A premature flowering in many of the key producing areas of Brazil in August has now gone over 30 days without follow-on rains thereby aborting such flowerings and ruining any chance for coffee cherries to form,” he added.

* November robusta coffee was off $17, or 0.85 percent, at $1,988 a tonne.

COCOA

* December London cocoa fell 5 pounds, or 0.3 percent, to 1,469 pounds a tonne.

* Dealers were monitoring top grower Ivory Coast, where crop-friendly weather in recent weeks is expected to benefit output, even as adverse conditions earlier in the season threaten to slow the start of the crop.

* “The cocoa that’s going to arrive in October is on the trees and it’s almost ready,” said one dealer. “It’s going to be a bit of a late start but it doesn’t mean it’s going to be a poor crop. We think it’s going to be a good crop all the same.”

* Heavy rain last week in Ivory Coast’s cocoa growing regions will boost the main harvest that runs from October to March if plenty of sunshine follows, farmers said on Monday.

* December New York cocoa was off $9, or 0.5 percent, at $1,966 a tonne.